Private History
by speshulduck
Summary: Here she is, three years after finding out...and she still can't move on.


title: private history  
  
author: duck  
  
rating: pg  
  
author's note: [points] Evil Giddy gets the blame for this one. Inspired by 'Lowdown,' but she told me to write a Casey fic, so I finally put the ideas down on paper--er...typed them. Thanks to kukrae as always for the beta, because trying to not write in present tense is a bitch.  
  
disclaimer: she ain't mine, nor is the show.  
  
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She was staring at her hands tonight. Delicate, pale, smooth. The nails were perfectly manicured, neatly trimmed, the clear nail polish not able to clash with any of her clothes or her hair. She moved one hand to capture a strand of it in her fingers. She studied it carefully, watching the way the highlights reflected in the candlelight. It was her favorite feature. Not bright red, but a subtle contrast to the often translucent quality of her skin.  
  
She absently stroked the back of the hand holding her hair, remembering the time when she was ten and forgot to put sunscreen on everywhere and ended up with a splotchy red sunburn. She'd refused to go to school, but her father made her. Her single father that had taught her to play baseball but couldn't teach her the first thing about clothes and make-up. Caitlin Berger -- the bane of her elementary school existence -- had made fun of her, telling her the sunburn was the only thing distracting everyone from her hideous hair. She'd hidden in the bathroom, crying in one of the stalls with childish graffiti until her teacher came in after her. She'd been gently extracted and sent to the nurse's office for a soothing treatment of aloe and affection only an elementary school nurse is able to give.  
  
Her eyes wandered to the tiny scar on the palm of her hand. That's where she fell running from the principal in high school. She and her boyfriend -- what was his name? Tommy? -- had been caught making out in the janitor's closet, and he'd pulled her to safety. They ran through the halls, laughing, until she'd tripped and landed hard on the tiled floor. Tommy had picked her up, carefully examining her cut. He had laughed again, and she was convinced her natural klutziness, apparent everywhere except the softball field, had endeared her to him.  
  
She wondered what had happened to him. They'd broken up a month later, the usual teenage angst unable to overcome her affection for him. She wondered what had happened to any of her ex-boyfriends. There were a couple in high school, the ones that her circle of friends traded like baseball cards. There had been a few in college, though only one serious enough for her to consider the possibility of a lifetime commitment. That had been in law school. The only one that stands out in her mind is her last one. Mark.  
  
Her hands slipped protectively over her stomach and she felt the familiar need to curl up into a fetal position until the aching fear stopped. He hadn't really done anything to hurt her. Theirs had been a satisfactory relationship for a while, a bit of diversion from the tedious banality of working in white collar crimes. He'd been a fellow ADA working with Robbery. They'd met for drinks a few times, then lunch, then dinner. It had progressed normally until they slept together. His interest had waned after that and he told her he wasn't really looking to get involved in a serious relationship.  
  
She told him she wasn't either, so they continued to meet for drinks at least once a week and return to one or the other's apartment afterwards. It was a nice arrangement when you really got down to it. No commitment, no real relationship to speak of, no complication. And then he had to go and complicate things. She should have known that something was up when he "wanted to talk" instead of drink.   
  
April 6th, 2001. 10:05pm.  
  
Tears slid down her check as she remembered it. Her hands automatically came up to catch them before they could fall onto her shirt. One shaky hand reached out blindly for her wine glass while the other covered her eyes.  
  
It had been a Friday night. They'd gone to the bar they usually frequented; the noise and anonymity of it all were a comforting constant. The steady throb of the sound system's bass never seemed to change, no matter what song was playing. It was the perfect place to get quietly drunk and ignore the world. It probably would be a good place to go now to get away from the horrors she had to face working the cases for sex crimes, but she'd never go back there again.  
  
Mark had gone to the doctor's for his yearly round of tests. He always wanted to be safe about things, though he never bothered to use protection himself. He'd tested positive for HIV. Oh God, how could he? She'd turned and run, not looking back once. He tried to stop her, but she shook off the hand on her arm and walked straight out the door.  
  
The agony of waiting for her own test results to come back, because she'd gone to the doctor the very next day, was unimaginable. Not knowing for sure one way or the other, yet being so sure that she couldn't have escaped this time. She spent the rest of the weekend hiding in her apartment, not answering the phone when he called. He'd tried at least ten times. He finally left a message on her machine.  
  
"Casey." A pause as he collects his thoughts. "I'm sorry. I know I can't apologize enough, and it's not something you can forgive me for, but I am sorry. I just wanted you to know that." The click of the connection dying.  
  
She listened to it so many times she memorized it. She turned her head to glance at the phone on the table behind her. The message light still glows red. She still hasn't deleted it. Here she is, three years after finding out she has HIV, and she still can't move on. She's going to have to get a new answering machine one of these days. She couldn't believe the tape had lasted this long.  
  
Her fingers curled reflexively around each other as she stared at the blank TV in front of her. She never went out, never flirted with anyone, wasn't outwardly friendly, couldn't let anyone get close. The father that had pushed her so hard when she was a child was dead of a heart attack. The mother that had abandoned them both when Casey was two had yet to return any of her calls. After five years of waiting, she was beyond hope that she'd ever hear from her mother. It didn't bother her as much as she thought it ought to.  
  
And here she was, yet another Friday night of being alone, of wishing she could just reach out to someone and let herself be free for just a few hours. Maybe tomorrow she'd hit the batting cages again.  
  
[end] 


End file.
